Definition of "ptarmigan" [ptar•mi•gan]

• Any of various grouses of the genus Lagopus, inhabiting arctic, subarctic, and alpine regions of the Northern Hemisphere and having feathered legs and feet and plumage that is brown or gray in summer and white in winter. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "I saw there also a beautiful white bird called a ptarmigan, which is a grouse, but it could not be caught."
• "We were far into the Brooks Range foothills now, at 3,100 feet, and perhaps the altitude would pay bonus points in ptarmigan."
• "The people who worked here followed the ancient custom of nature, whereby the ptarmigan is the color of dead leaves in the fall and of snow in the winter, and the chameleon, who is black when he lies upon a stump and turns green when he moves to a leaf."